8. March 2010 by Friedhelm.

Creating images that bring out fear, joy sadness compassion etc. out of the viewer are always a great challenge. I wanted to create an image that creates feelings of fear. I borrowed this old Turkish knife and put my camera of a tripod. I set the camera on manual focus and pre-focused the distance. I used f13 to give a good depth of field, 0,5 sec. expose time to capture the motion @ ISO 400. I used two umbrellas with permanent lights to create the reflection on the knife. The I took the first test shots to get the right angle for the reflection of the light on the knife. It took a little bit of patients and a number of try shots to get this image. The trick was to overexpose a little bit, hold the knife still in the final position and move the knife backwards during the exposure time to get the reflection of the light into the camera. During the post-production process I duplicated the image and inverted the second layer. Then I “played” a little bit in Photoshop to get the desired effect.

Enjoy the image and start experimenting!

Posted in Compositions | Print | No Comments »

2. March 2010 by Friedhelm.

When I photograph a person I always think: Who is that person, what does he/she like? In what context does he/she thrive. In this image I wanted to show the relationship between this young lady and the tulips. Her eyes, her hair and the position of her legs establish a relationship with the flower.

Enjoy!

Posted in Compositions, Portraits | Print | No Comments »

22. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

This is an other image of my “throw away” mail. To me it almost looks like a flower (with some imagination). Camera setting: f8, 1/20sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy and have a great photographic day!

Posted in Compositions | Print | No Comments »

21. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

Today was not a great day to go out and photograph. It was wet and yucky therefore I decided to look for a subject in my room. When I looked at my paper shredder I saw a bunch of old mail and envelopes that needed to be destroyed. I decided to photograph them. I used several arrangement until I achieved the composition I liked. The red dot is the focal point and the lines that are created by the white paper support the overall structure of the image. I used mostly side and back lightning to create the shadows that I wanted. The shallow depth of field is another tool to draw attention to the main focal point. I used my 85mm portrait lens with a 12mm extender. Camera setting: f2.8, 1/50.sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy and be creative with your photography. You find a subject anywhere!

Posted in Compositions | Print | No Comments »

18. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I shot this image at Avila Beach. In the window you see the reflection of the pier which caught my eye while I was standing in the parking lot of the beach. The light was perfect at the “Golden Hour” and still I was debating with myself if I should either radically edit this image in post production or delete it altogether. The reason is twofold: First, I like a clear subject in an image. In this image my eyes are wandering around. The cropped the number sign off at least a little bit but as always letters and numbers draw attention. In addition the palm tree is blocking partially the view and there are two small shadow points in the lower left. These spots fight for your attention and it seems to me that they draw away from the reflection. Second: To contradict this pulling away energy, I cropped the window frame as tight as possible. This creates a feeling of being cramped. Still, I like the image. Camera setting: focal length 370mm, f16, 1/250sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

Posted in California Coast, Compositions | Print | No Comments »

10. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

It can be a challenge to combine several different light sources in one image. There are four different light sources in this images. There is the strong warm light in the front, the candle light in the window, the lamps in the restaurant and the cold neon light in the back. In this image the cold neon and the warm lights form a nice contrast and make this image work.

Enjoy and “think before you shoot” (quote from one of my favorite photographers, Martin Munkacsi).

Posted in Compositions, Cityscape | Print | No Comments »

8. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

Night Photography has it’s own challenges and rewards. Many times I struggle with blown out highlights from lamps and too dark shadows. Adobe Lightroom (the new Adobe Lightroom beta version can be downloaded for free and used until the final version will ship in Spring of 2010) offers a wonderful masking tool which allow editing local areas. In the raw file it looked like that the light source completely blew out the entire area above the door. With Lightroom I was able to bring back quite a lot of structure and still give the impression of a strong light above the door.

Enjoy this image and have a wonderful week.

Posted in Compositions, Architecture | Print | No Comments »

4. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

On my morning exercise walk I pass by a playground. This week I decided to photograph it. The focus of my attention became quickly line, shapes and contrast. I discovered that a play ground is a great “playground” for composition techniques.

Enjoy and play with you camera on a playground!

Posted in Compositions | Print | 1 Comment »

3. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

As I mentioned before, it is a good idea to take your camera with just one lens from time to time. I did this exercise with my 85mm portrait lens. During my exercise walk I took a closer look at the bark of an Eucalyptus tree and discovered this incredible natural composition that I just had to frame with my camera.

Enjoy and be creative with your camera

Posted in Compositions, Trees | Print | No Comments »

1. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I was photographing at the Merced courthouse when I discovered on the side of the building an old iron gate.  Camera setting: f22, 4sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy!

Posted in Compositions, Architecture | Print | No Comments »